Both Houston’s personal and professional backgrounds have prepared him to thrive in a telecoms industry in the midst of dramatic transformation. Born in the US and raised in Canada, he left both North America and an academic career to set off for Australia and entry into high tech, originally in the realm of satellite ground systems. He then spent five years with strategy consultants McKinsey & Company, focused on assisting companies grappling with major upheaval: M&A, restructuring, and radical growth.

In 2001, Houston joined Alcatel’s Asia Pacific headquarters, in Shanghai. He moved to the company’s global headquarters, in Paris, with the establishment of Alcatel’s Chief Marketing Office in 2003, to take up the role of Director, Global Marketing Team.

In his current role, Houston leads the team responsible for Alcatel’s activity with key non-customer stakeholders, from industry analysts and strategic partners to end users. He is also responsible for Alcatel’s global marketing planning.

Houston ’s industry passions, not surprisingly, focus on change: the unprecedented competitive dynamics driving the communications industry’s transformation, and what players across the value chain can do to carve opportunity from them. He has written a number of papers on convergent services and has assisted telecoms operators, worldwide, in drawing the service and network implications from the competitive trends in their markets.

Along the way, Houston has taught facilitation skills to hundreds of professionals worldwide, and earned a broad reputation as a dynamic speaker. He is a published author, ghost-writer and photographer, and has served on the editorial boards of several professional journals, including The McKinsey Quarterly and The Business Communicator. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications, and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved adjusted proforma revenues of Euro 18.3 billion in 2006 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. [All figures exclude impact of activities to be transferred to Thales]. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com